Report for Week 6 - May 2 - 6
To: Robin Haun-Mohamed
From: Cathy Zegelin
CC: Ingrid Reyes-Arias
Date: 5/6/2011
Re: Status Update Week 6
Hours worked:
4/30 – 3.5; Work on drafts; 12-3:30pm
5/4 – 5; Work on draft of final documents, meet with Cass, research in Suzzallo Stacks, work in Govpubs stacks; 8:30 – 10am, 11-12pm, 2:30 – 5pm
5/6 – 5; call with Robin, meeting with Amy Entze, research and work on drafts; 7:30-8am, 10am-11am, 11-12:30, 2:30-4:30
Week 6: 13.5 hours
Total: 70 hours
This week I had several discoveries and made progress on the drafts of the final reports. I spent Saturday reviewing all of my notes and outlining the documents to find any holes in my research that I could fill in over the next two weeks. I accomplished most of the final research this week through my meeting with Cass, with Amy in database management, and through further research online and in the stacks.
In my meeting with Cass we discussed the approaches I’ve been using so far to search the collection. She showed me the online Monthly Catalog through ProQuest that UW subscribes to as an easier method of search. The print Mocat is still important because of the value of the handwritten notes marking receipt of the documents, but in cases such as the Rotary Wing Aircraft manuals (which would be published according to the month they were distributed and not in a linear sequence in the published MoCat) could be searched in the online version to find information on each of the volumes in the eighteen volume set. We were still only able to find the reference to Volume 11 from the 1955 print catalog, but the search was not extensive and for further research this is a valuable resource for looking up items and cross checking if they were distributed or not (the database allows for keyword searching but also provides access to scanned images of the pages from the printed catalogs). Cass also walked me through the process of finding out about the selective percentages through the FDLP desktop and some of the features there which will be useful to understand for anyone approaching this project.
I discussed my intended foray into the Suzzallo stacks and asked her opinion on where to start. She said to think about the items that would have come from the Natural Sciences and Marine Fisheries libraries, which were closed a few years ago. The collections were moved into the general Suzzallo stacks. In the days before online catalogs and the ability to request an item and have it sent to another library for pick-up, many of the libraries on campus kept duplicates of items that were held in other parts of the collection. She said that as items were absorbed into the Suzzallo collection, duplicates were re-distributed or discarded through appropriate methods in compliance with FDLP regulations. I was advised to check for depository stamps on the items, and where there weren’t stamps, the items probably came from a commercial vendor. I searched the catalog for NOAA (I chose NOAA because I assumed there would be a large amount of material and these would probably be known to GPO as the NOAA Central Library is very active in cataloging items and publishing the holdings to OCLC. I do not know if the librarians also work with GPO to get records into the CGP)
I found several holdings from NOAA, the majority with depository stamps, but a few interesting sections of the collection without them. These items are all classified using LC, and I thought that it would be helpful for someone searching an LC classified collection to determine the likely class numbers for subject searching and then to browse the shelf. I focused on Weather Service documents and found a shelf with Weather Bureau Report of the Chief of the Weather Bureau from 1891 to 1935, when the Weather Bureau was part of the department of Agriculture. These were bound editions (appeared to be original binding and not UW binding) and printed by the GPO. They were commissioned by the War department. There was another collection from the Weather Bureau on climatology data from 1921 to 1940 while under the Department of Agriculture, and then 1940 to 1948 after the bureau was transferred to the Department of Commerce. It was several years later that the bureau was wrapped into NOAA under the umbrella of the Department of Commerce. I could not find this item listed in the CGP. The first item in the set had a penciled SuDoc number, A29.1 1891/92. I found the OCLC record, #51435421, which did not have much description in the record but did list a few libraries that had them, including the HathiTrust Digital Library, which has full scans of the series available. The UW classified the items using LC (QC983 .A14) I found the reference for this document using the online MoCat in the December 1985 edition, although I only found the listing for 1895 and the series was printed annually until 1935.
Another interesting find was a document titled “Burns: Treatment of burns and prevention of wound infection” found in the June 1943 print MoCat. I was browsing this edition looking for the librarian markings and to the black dots to see if I could find some of the earlier materials that were sent to depository libraries, and were received by the UW. The SuDoc number assigned is Pr 32:4402:B 93 /943. I looked up Pr 32 in the Guide to US Publications (2011) and the number refers to the Office of Civilian Defense – General Publications. (The guide is also immensely helpful because it lists every SuDoc stem, the agency and type of document it relates to, and a quick description of the agency function as well as the years the agency existed.) I checked the UW catalog but did not find the document. I then checked OCLC with no luck. It was also not in the CGP. I decided to check the stacks in Suzzallo and actually found the document on the shelf. It is an 11 page pamphlet distributed by the department of civilian defense. The UW has two copies. One received in 1943, and one that was sent to the UW from Seattle Public Library when the library discarded the majority of its government documents collection, following FDLP standards for discarding materials. The item had a stamp from UW for 2009 and the SuDoc number was penciled on, the item was shelved, but it was not entered into the UW Catalog. The item exists and is available, but no access to it has been created in the ILS, so I think it’s a great example of an unknown item. I scanned the document , which can be accessed here the UW copy, and here for the Seattle Public Library copy.
I had my appointment with Amy Entze today. She works in cataloging and has been working on the project to catalog the government documents collection since 2002. This has been a massive undertaking and is ongoing. The A-FS SuDocs are fully cataloged. Homeland Security, Department of State, and the War Department are also complete. They are currently working on the Department of Education, Department of the Navy, and Committee hearings. They have not yet reached the Pr section, which would explain how the burns pamphlet was on the shelf but not in the catalog. I mentioned the document to her and she said she would have a look at it. For documents such as this one, they are sent to the catalog department as one-offs when patrons find them and wish to check them out, or staff comes across them.
The handling of the cataloging and bibliographic control is a massive undertaking. The staff are working hard to put SuDoc numbers back into the records as they can, and to create original catalog records when none exist in OCLC. The staff use OCLC connexion with Millinium as their cataloging tools. They check if an OCLC record contains an 086 MARC field, and compare that number with what is on the document. For those they are unsure of they use the online MoCat, or send the document back to the GovPubs department for clarification. The majority of their cataloging project is on pre-1976 items. For original cataloging they often do not put subject headings in the records, but are trying to ensure the SuDoc numbers are entered. Since the project began, circulation records for the GovPubs collection has skyrocketed and Amy said that she understands the importance of the collection and creating access to it for users. The process is time consuming and expensive. She is the only full time cataloger assigned to the project. She works with a rotating staff of students, usually one or two for a short term period of time, so the progress is slow. Much of their work is in enhancing the OCLC records when they catalog items for the UW collection, as many OCLC records (especially for older items) are minimalist or incomplete.
I asked Amy if they check the CGP or have a process of communicating to GPO about items that aren’t listed in the CGP. She said that the focus is not on GPO and the CGP. The focus is on creating access to the UW collections. Checking CGP is another step they have not considered because of resources, and it is up to the staff in GovPubs to work with GPO and notify them of any updates to the CGP. I asked what GPO could do to assist in creating an easy channel of communication to provide incentive for catalogers to work with them in sharing records and checking for ‘fugitives’ while doing their work and she said collaboration would be nice, but there is a balance between manpower and time and what is most useful to users. She said she understand the importance of providing access to these collections, and among government documents librarians the value is known, but further out of the circle of the people who work with them the value may not be seen. It is hard to get buy in from staff who work hard to keep up with collections with decreasing resources and institutional support.
Having met with several librarians over the last few weeks I think a common thread is, why take on extra work? Some know and do care about supporting the efforts at GPO, but when it comes down to determining how to spread thin resources to satisfy the needs of the direct community, it is hard to think about adding time and energy to working towards the information needs of larger user populations.
From: Cathy Zegelin
CC: Ingrid Reyes-Arias
Date: 5/6/2011
Re: Status Update Week 6
Hours worked:
4/30 – 3.5; Work on drafts; 12-3:30pm
5/4 – 5; Work on draft of final documents, meet with Cass, research in Suzzallo Stacks, work in Govpubs stacks; 8:30 – 10am, 11-12pm, 2:30 – 5pm
5/6 – 5; call with Robin, meeting with Amy Entze, research and work on drafts; 7:30-8am, 10am-11am, 11-12:30, 2:30-4:30
Week 6: 13.5 hours
Total: 70 hours
This week I had several discoveries and made progress on the drafts of the final reports. I spent Saturday reviewing all of my notes and outlining the documents to find any holes in my research that I could fill in over the next two weeks. I accomplished most of the final research this week through my meeting with Cass, with Amy in database management, and through further research online and in the stacks.
In my meeting with Cass we discussed the approaches I’ve been using so far to search the collection. She showed me the online Monthly Catalog through ProQuest that UW subscribes to as an easier method of search. The print Mocat is still important because of the value of the handwritten notes marking receipt of the documents, but in cases such as the Rotary Wing Aircraft manuals (which would be published according to the month they were distributed and not in a linear sequence in the published MoCat) could be searched in the online version to find information on each of the volumes in the eighteen volume set. We were still only able to find the reference to Volume 11 from the 1955 print catalog, but the search was not extensive and for further research this is a valuable resource for looking up items and cross checking if they were distributed or not (the database allows for keyword searching but also provides access to scanned images of the pages from the printed catalogs). Cass also walked me through the process of finding out about the selective percentages through the FDLP desktop and some of the features there which will be useful to understand for anyone approaching this project.
I discussed my intended foray into the Suzzallo stacks and asked her opinion on where to start. She said to think about the items that would have come from the Natural Sciences and Marine Fisheries libraries, which were closed a few years ago. The collections were moved into the general Suzzallo stacks. In the days before online catalogs and the ability to request an item and have it sent to another library for pick-up, many of the libraries on campus kept duplicates of items that were held in other parts of the collection. She said that as items were absorbed into the Suzzallo collection, duplicates were re-distributed or discarded through appropriate methods in compliance with FDLP regulations. I was advised to check for depository stamps on the items, and where there weren’t stamps, the items probably came from a commercial vendor. I searched the catalog for NOAA (I chose NOAA because I assumed there would be a large amount of material and these would probably be known to GPO as the NOAA Central Library is very active in cataloging items and publishing the holdings to OCLC. I do not know if the librarians also work with GPO to get records into the CGP)
I found several holdings from NOAA, the majority with depository stamps, but a few interesting sections of the collection without them. These items are all classified using LC, and I thought that it would be helpful for someone searching an LC classified collection to determine the likely class numbers for subject searching and then to browse the shelf. I focused on Weather Service documents and found a shelf with Weather Bureau Report of the Chief of the Weather Bureau from 1891 to 1935, when the Weather Bureau was part of the department of Agriculture. These were bound editions (appeared to be original binding and not UW binding) and printed by the GPO. They were commissioned by the War department. There was another collection from the Weather Bureau on climatology data from 1921 to 1940 while under the Department of Agriculture, and then 1940 to 1948 after the bureau was transferred to the Department of Commerce. It was several years later that the bureau was wrapped into NOAA under the umbrella of the Department of Commerce. I could not find this item listed in the CGP. The first item in the set had a penciled SuDoc number, A29.1 1891/92. I found the OCLC record, #51435421, which did not have much description in the record but did list a few libraries that had them, including the HathiTrust Digital Library, which has full scans of the series available. The UW classified the items using LC (QC983 .A14) I found the reference for this document using the online MoCat in the December 1985 edition, although I only found the listing for 1895 and the series was printed annually until 1935.
Another interesting find was a document titled “Burns: Treatment of burns and prevention of wound infection” found in the June 1943 print MoCat. I was browsing this edition looking for the librarian markings and to the black dots to see if I could find some of the earlier materials that were sent to depository libraries, and were received by the UW. The SuDoc number assigned is Pr 32:4402:B 93 /943. I looked up Pr 32 in the Guide to US Publications (2011) and the number refers to the Office of Civilian Defense – General Publications. (The guide is also immensely helpful because it lists every SuDoc stem, the agency and type of document it relates to, and a quick description of the agency function as well as the years the agency existed.) I checked the UW catalog but did not find the document. I then checked OCLC with no luck. It was also not in the CGP. I decided to check the stacks in Suzzallo and actually found the document on the shelf. It is an 11 page pamphlet distributed by the department of civilian defense. The UW has two copies. One received in 1943, and one that was sent to the UW from Seattle Public Library when the library discarded the majority of its government documents collection, following FDLP standards for discarding materials. The item had a stamp from UW for 2009 and the SuDoc number was penciled on, the item was shelved, but it was not entered into the UW Catalog. The item exists and is available, but no access to it has been created in the ILS, so I think it’s a great example of an unknown item. I scanned the document , which can be accessed here the UW copy, and here for the Seattle Public Library copy.
I had my appointment with Amy Entze today. She works in cataloging and has been working on the project to catalog the government documents collection since 2002. This has been a massive undertaking and is ongoing. The A-FS SuDocs are fully cataloged. Homeland Security, Department of State, and the War Department are also complete. They are currently working on the Department of Education, Department of the Navy, and Committee hearings. They have not yet reached the Pr section, which would explain how the burns pamphlet was on the shelf but not in the catalog. I mentioned the document to her and she said she would have a look at it. For documents such as this one, they are sent to the catalog department as one-offs when patrons find them and wish to check them out, or staff comes across them.
The handling of the cataloging and bibliographic control is a massive undertaking. The staff are working hard to put SuDoc numbers back into the records as they can, and to create original catalog records when none exist in OCLC. The staff use OCLC connexion with Millinium as their cataloging tools. They check if an OCLC record contains an 086 MARC field, and compare that number with what is on the document. For those they are unsure of they use the online MoCat, or send the document back to the GovPubs department for clarification. The majority of their cataloging project is on pre-1976 items. For original cataloging they often do not put subject headings in the records, but are trying to ensure the SuDoc numbers are entered. Since the project began, circulation records for the GovPubs collection has skyrocketed and Amy said that she understands the importance of the collection and creating access to it for users. The process is time consuming and expensive. She is the only full time cataloger assigned to the project. She works with a rotating staff of students, usually one or two for a short term period of time, so the progress is slow. Much of their work is in enhancing the OCLC records when they catalog items for the UW collection, as many OCLC records (especially for older items) are minimalist or incomplete.
I asked Amy if they check the CGP or have a process of communicating to GPO about items that aren’t listed in the CGP. She said that the focus is not on GPO and the CGP. The focus is on creating access to the UW collections. Checking CGP is another step they have not considered because of resources, and it is up to the staff in GovPubs to work with GPO and notify them of any updates to the CGP. I asked what GPO could do to assist in creating an easy channel of communication to provide incentive for catalogers to work with them in sharing records and checking for ‘fugitives’ while doing their work and she said collaboration would be nice, but there is a balance between manpower and time and what is most useful to users. She said she understand the importance of providing access to these collections, and among government documents librarians the value is known, but further out of the circle of the people who work with them the value may not be seen. It is hard to get buy in from staff who work hard to keep up with collections with decreasing resources and institutional support.
Having met with several librarians over the last few weeks I think a common thread is, why take on extra work? Some know and do care about supporting the efforts at GPO, but when it comes down to determining how to spread thin resources to satisfy the needs of the direct community, it is hard to think about adding time and energy to working towards the information needs of larger user populations.